Followed By The Dead

The last email from Twitter irked me a bit:

Hi, Rezwan.
Dead Grandmother (YourDeadGranny) is now following your updates on Twitter.

A little information about Dead Grandmother:

146 followers
9 updates
following 1041 people

I know I should not freak out. A Bangla blogger at Sachalayatan was also annoyed by an invitation in Facebook from the ex dictator (president) H. M. Ershad who is known for his attraction to women. Social Networking platforms are really becoming very interesting.

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Ein Sommernachtstraum

Today I watched one adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in the 'Schaubuehne Am Lehniner Platz' Theatre in Berlin. The name of the German version is Ein Sommernachtstraum.

Its a collaboration between Director Thomas Ostermeier and Choreographer Constanza Macras and the brochure boasted "its an evening about loss of identity and sex."



I must say I am amazed by the choreography and musical skills of the drama group. However in reality it was a mixture of Hard rock, opera, classical, improvised music, dance, acrobatics, choreography, strip tease, nudity, slangs, dialogues in multiple languages including Chinese, Italian, German, English and all in all it was hard to digest. Shakespeare was little present in the whole act, may be I got lost in translation.

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Inequality

Image credit Used And Amused via Ultra Violet.

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Google Chrome OS and the economics of Free

Everybody is now talking about the announcement of Google that the Google Chrome Operating System will be available for users for free. From the Official Google Blog:

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010.

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web.

Analysts are calculating Google's strength and asking questions like "will Google OS kill MS Windows?"

We need to understand how Google places itself on the forefronts of change and offers services for free which others can only offer commercially. Jeff Jarvis explains:

How does Google win? Its products are generally but not always better and cheaper (read: free) because Google’s real secret is that it understands the economics of the internet and competed aggressively not against technology and internet companies but instead it competed for advertisers, selling performance over scarcity. The more Google serves end users – and the more it learns about them – the more opportunities it has.

These are the economics of free as Chris Anderson writes in his book Free For Free:

Free is both a familiar concept and a deeply mysterious one. It is as powerful as it is misunderstood. The free that emerged over the past decade is different from the free that came before, but how and why are rarely explored. What more, today's Free is full of apparent contradiction: you can make money giving things away. There really is a free lunch. Sometimes you get more than you pay for.

There were broadly two camps of skeptics: those over thirty and those below. The older critics, who had grown up with twentieth-century Free, were rightly suspicious: Surely “free” is nothing of the sort-we all pay sooner or later. Not only is it not new, but it's the oldest marketing gimmick in the book. When you hear “free”, reach for your wallet.

The younger critics had a different response: “Duh!” this is the Google Generation, and they've grown up online simply assuming that everything digital is free. The fact that we are now creating a global economy around the price of zero seemed too self-evident to even note.

Read the book to understand how the Free dynamics work.

Gigaom says:

Today Google went wild and announced its plans to create the Chrome operating system, which it says will be designed to run on netbooks. But it’s really an attempt to keep Google relevant as an advertising powerhouse as consumers begin spending more time playing with web-connected apps than the web itself. It’s the search giant’s reaction to a wholesale change in computing driven by ubiquitous wireless access and mobility. The Chrome OS is another step in allowing Google to create what we’ve called the OS for advertising — an ad platform that extends across all devices and all screens.

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Glimpses of 1996: Investors Beware

Today I saw a report of share market manipulation in Bangladesh. BD Thai, a local company producing aluminum panels incurred losses for four consecutive years till 2007. Its share price dropped as low as Tk 43 while the face value of the share is Tk 100.

Now, how to turn the price of Tk. 43 into Tk. 1200 (current market value)? Enter a foreign investment fund called GEM Global Yield Fund from USA, offering to pump in a huge amount into the company with a hopeless record and some market propaganda.

The Daily Star reports:

A deal was cut between the aluminium panel producer and the foreign investment fund under which the foreign firm snapped up a huge chunk of shares at a huge premium.

The market went crazy with the news. The company's shares worth Tk 43 soon started trading at a breakneck speed at astronomical prices, reaching as high as Tk 1,199 a share.

Within a month and a half, the foreign firm dumped all its shares on the bourses, and made even more astronomical profits. It repatriated $2 million from Bangladesh against its investment of $500,000. A super deal by any standard, for a month and a half.

GEM Global sold 272000 BD Thai Aluminium shares at Tk 909.51 each, totaling in more than Tk 247.3 million.

GEM Global is an investment firm of GEM Global Emerging Markets, having offices in New York, London, Paris, Hong Kong, and Beijing.

GEM Global is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, a British overseas territory in the Caribbean. It is billed as a centre for tax evasion. It has a tax rate of zero for corporation tax, income tax, and capital gains, drawing some of the world's biggest banks and hedge funds to its shores.

GEM Global have purchased shares of more companies of Bangladesh, namely Beximco Pharmaceuticals, and Aftab Automobiles. GEM Global seeks to acquire 16% stake of Beximco pharmaceuticals.

The Security Exchange Commission presently does not have any lock-in system for the foreign fund. "In the past, the lock-in system had been in place for all companies -- both foreign and local -- to avert short-term speculative trading, and flight of capital from the market."

The problem also lies with the investors in Bangladesh whom can be easily manipulated. A tip for them:

How to Recognize Stock Market Manipulation vs Normal Stock Market Movement?

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Bangladeshi Peacekeeper Wins The Heart Of The Liberians

Liberian blog 2tango informs that Lt.-Col. Ershad Hossain from Bangladesh voluntarily donated his blood to save Menemon Jarbo, a pregnant Liberian woman who later gave birth to a set of triplets. He is the team leader of MILOB (UNMIL Military Observer from Bangladesh) Team Eleven in southeastern Zwedru, Grand Gedeh County in Liberia.

The blogger writes:

This medical emergency was a case referred from River Gee County to the Martha Tubman Memorial Hospital in Zwedru. Relatives of Menemon Jarbo had tried to get a donor with the right blood type, to no avail. Then came this good “Samaritan”: Lt.-Col. Ershad, to their aid. The proud mother and her three babies are presently doing great.

The donor insisted on remaining anonymous, but his noble contribution to save four lives could not remain unheralded. Lt.-Col. Ershad has indeed made himself, the United Nations and his country, Bangladesh, very proud through this singular, voluntary gesture. It is indeed hoped that others would emulate his shining example.

Showering Lt.-Col. Ershad with deserving words of commendation, UNMIL Deputy Force Commander, Maj.-Gen. Carl Modey, who is the Chief Military Observer, said: “I hereby salute you on behalf of the entire UNMIL Force and indeed the whole Mission. You really made us all proud and you deserve our special commendation”.

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The Mighty IE8 Without A Spell Checker

I basically use Firefox and sporadically use Internet Explorar when I am multitasking and checking my windows live mail. What I miss in IE is an inbuilt spell checker. I even downloaded a spellchecker plug in called iSpell which works manually and a bit cumbersome. Recently I have upgraded to IE8, and thought that it would have this feature. But sadly IE has still a long way to go comparing to Firefox and Safari in this regards.

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